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E SEQUEL IS AN AMAZING TREAT

July 23, 2010

How long?

2-3 minutes

We mentioned the other day (in a slow-off-the-mark kind of way) that
Matt Beaumont has written a sequel to the much-loved book E. A few weeks
back I was lucky enough to meet the E Man for a coffee. So a proper
feature/interview is coming soon. But for now here is a little book
report on the long-awaited sequel.

There are some great little quirky details in the ad agency, Meerkat
360, many of which were slightly inspired by Matt's time working at M&C
Saatchi, where he is still working now.- The creative departments have
their own beach huts to retreat to. These actually exist at M&C. - There
is an in-house clown at the creatives' disposal. This, Matt says, was
inspired by the day Graham Fink sent an e-mail around the agency to
announce a new resident musician. This was the trigger in Beaumont's
mind for "what is the most ridiculous thing you can hire for the
creatives?" So that's how he ended up with a hairdresser and a clown. -
There is a musician, Yossi Mendoza, who performs a "Jinglonia" - a
"reinterpretation of classic advertising jingles, the life-enriching ...
musical vignettes that remain embedded deep in our psyches". On the
billing is "A finger of fudge", "It's the Milky Bar Kid" and other hits.
I wish this would happen in real life.

There are other gem-like moments, such as when he crosses into real life
by writing about the real people working at Transworld Publishers who
become embroiled in one of the storylines. (Although they weren't too
happy about their cameos, apparently!)

Anyway, all in all it's a great sequel, well worth a read. It's also
worth checking out the "meerkats" at twitter.com/meerkat360 and
www.Meerkat360.co.uk first, just to acquaint yourself with the
characters. Beaumont wrote the copy himself. And he reckons the designer
took inspiration from Glue's website. But I can't see much
similarity.

Beaumont has said the reason he waited so long to do a sequel was that
he was waiting for things to change enough for it to be interesting. Ten
years on, the technology is unrecognisable. And he's made the most of
those changes. It's fun (and a bit scary) to imagine what another sequel
would be like, should there be an E in 2020.

Lolly and Nat, www.campaignlive.co.uk

MOAT WON'T DRIVE US OFF THE NET

Like everyone else, I went through the Stages of Blogging. Trepidation
at the first post, pride when something had arrived on the internet,
happiness at finding other people reading, delight when it turned out to
be a really interesting community, disillusionment at trolling and
horrible comments and the realisation that blogging's just like
everywhere else - there are bad people there. And, thinking back, I had
the same experience with usenet and CompuServe forums.

And now, the whole country's having it. Facebook has got millions of
people doing social internet stuff and they're going to go through the
same stages of blogging. It started with privacy, it's Moat now, it'll
be grieving and trolls and pranks and everything else soon.

And we'll fall a bit out of love, but we'll keep using it for what it's
good at, and stop doing what worries us.

The added dimension now is that Facebook isn't confined to a
technocratic elite. It's added swathes of people who've previously not
had much public voice. And lots of them think Moatey is a legend.

Broadly, I think this is a good thing. It's good to know what people
think, even if you don't approve. We should be disappointed and
disgusted by this sort of thing, but, hopefully, soon, we'll stop being
surprised.

http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning

BEWARE UNCOMPROMISING STANCE

A big-name executive creative director is brought into a large, network
ad agency to shake up the creative department.

On his first day, he gathers the creative department together to give
them a rousing speech, and a taste of his uncompromising new regime.

He stands in front of the group of slouching creatives and asks if
anyone there is a has-been hack, and if they are, they should stand
now.

After an interminable period of silence, a creative in his early
thirties slowly gets to his feet. The executive creative director asks
the chap if he really feels that he is a has-been hack.

The creative replies: "No, I just felt sorry for you standing there all
by yourself."

http://sellsellblog.blogspot.com

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